Son of Neptune
by Rydd Rider
Summary: Percy wakes up in a forest with two monsters after him and two demigods running with him, with two more soon to follow. He doesn't even know his last name. But his confusion won't stop there. Heroes of Olympus spoilers. R&R, please.


**Yes, this has been done before, possibly a little too much. But I have a different idea, so I'm writing it. This is my fan version of the sequel of The Lost Hero. This chapter is a little longer than I'm used to writing, sorry if it drags.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJatO or HoO.**

I blinked awake slowly, staring up at a blurry view of leaves and branches. I blinked again, and my vision cleared a little.

I sat up and looked around. I was in a forest, surrounded by nothing but green and an occasional peek of brown dirt of a tree trunk; even below me, there was only green. I seriously hoped I wasn't sitting on any poison ivy. That stuff really itched.

I got to my feet, maybe a little shakily, but not much. The forest was the same as a surveyed it a second time, looking for some indication of where in the wide world I was.

Wait a second. I didn't know?

I racked my brain to think of what I did know—but that wasn't much. I didn't know where I was. I didn't know how old I was. I didn't know where I lived. Heck, I didn't even know my own name.

No, that wasn't true. My name was… Percy. Percy what? …Okay then, just Percy.

But that was all. I didn't know anything else. I couldn't remember. Everything was gone and all that was left was an empty white space in the back of my skull. I breathed out slowly and wondered how on earth I was going to get it all back, because I sure as Hades wasn't going to let it go.

Whoa, sure as _what_?

Before I could puzzle that out, though, I heard a shout, running feet, and a growl. Just as I began to turn around I was thrown to the ground.

Someone yelped. I figured it was the person who'd landed on me. I shoved them off and leapt to my feet, staring at the sandy-haired boy, maybe my age—which I didn't know, _freaky_—who'd tackled me. He stood up and stared at me with a slightly wild look in his eyes, like he'd been chased by ghosts across a few states.

"Who are you?" he snapped.

"Percy," I replied, not pausing to think whether answering had been a good idea. "You?"

The boy hesitated for a heartbeat, sizing up the situation in a second. "Chance." Chance looked around, as if something was going to jump out at him. It made me jump about three feet straight up when something actually _did_.

A girl tumbled straight into Chance, nearly knocking him off his feet. He grabbed her arm, steadying them both as they stumbled.

"Tracy, are you okay?" Chance asked her. Tracy nodded, but she was out of breath.

"It's right… behind," she gasped, and then she saw me. "Who—"

"Tracy, Percy, Percy, Tracy," Chance volunteered with necessary hand gestures, by way of introduction.

There was a snarl, and Tracy shoved both Chance and I in the opposite direction. "Run! It's right behind us!"

I wasn't sure what _it_ was, and a few steps later, I glanced back to see. Curiosity killed the cat. Right there, just behind us, was a dog the size of a pick-up truck, snarling and glaring at us with hate in its beady eyes. I spun back around and ran harder.

That didn't help much. An instant later, something flew at us, screeching, and my eyes widened at the sight of the creature; some type of leather-winged, shriveled-faced hag with glowing red eyes. It screeched again and cracked its whip. I stopped trying to make any sense of what was happening and just reacted, which I'm now pretty sure is my strong suit, or one of them.

I grabbed Chance's arm and leaped to the side, out of the way of both monsters. Chance grabbed Tracy's elbow just in time for us all to stumble sideways and continue running in a new direction.

I reached into my pocket, weirdly certain that there was something that could help me in there. But there wasn't so much as a quarter, and I felt a shaft of disappointment. I wished I had time to think, if only to try to remember that—hopefully—this wasn't the kind of thing I _usually_ woke up to. That would just be depressing.

There was another screech, louder and closer than before. I looked straight up and saw that hag again, this time just above us and diving down, flames dancing along the length of its whip. I didn't have a chance to react except to raise my arm in front of my face. The whip wrapped around my wrist and I was yanked into the air.

Why doesn't this hurt? I wondered when I saw flames lick my arm but felt none of the pain I was sure should have come with it. But as the monster tried to shake me off, I had a lot more to worry about. Like trying not to fall ten feet to the forest floor, for instance. I grabbed at the whip and held on for dear life as the hag went berserk, flying higher and diving again, doing its best to knock me from the whip.

I heard a scream and heard Chance calling Tracy's name. I looked down for a moment and saw Chance punch the dog solidly on the snout. The dog's eyes flared in pain and hate and it lifted its jaws off of Tracy's now bloody leg to snap at Chance.

Suddenly, the hag swooped downward lower than before, dragging me along the ground on my stomach. I flipped over by accident and skidded along on my back for about three seconds, hitting the ground a couple times hard enough that I should have gotten some major bruises, even if I didn't for some reason. Suddenly I let go of the whip with a shout of pain. It felt like the small of my back had exploded. White-hot pain lanced up my spine and arched though my body.

So I could hold a flaming whip no problem, but a bump against the ground and I turned into a blind heap of pain? Yeah, that made a lot of sense. It was so intense that it was hazing my vision as I lay on my back, hardly daring to move in fear that one wrong move would make it even worse. I took a breath and the oxygen cleared my vision just a little. Enough to see the hag diving down at me once again.

Great. I was so dead. And I still didn't even know my last name—couldn't the Underworld wait a while?

Apparently it could. I saw a flicker of movement at the corner of my eye and the hag jerked downward unnaturally, like something had landed on it. Its indignant squawk was cut short as its head suddenly detached from its body barely five feet from my face. Both the body and the head dissolved into a yellow powder as they fell and the dust sprinkled on me like dyed snow.

A girl dropped from the air where the hag had been, landing with a foot on either side of my torso. She glared down at me with cold gray eyes, looking like she might gut me with the two gold knives she was holding. She was intimidating, but couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen. A few years younger than me. Then why did the fierce look on her face set my skin crawling, even in the pained state I was in?

I guess laying there dazed while a monster tries to kill you is a tip off that you're in pain, because she noticed. Her gaze softened, and that told me that I wasn't her enemy, which I figured already was a really bad thing to be. She looked over her shoulder, her curly, honey blond hair flicking in the movement, to look at someone in that direction. I couldn't see them, since her foot was in the way.

"No problems, Dakota?" she called, stepping to the side and changing her position of standing threateningly over me.

"None except the obvious, Gwen," a voice called back. It was older than the girl's, maybe sixteen.

She scowled. "That's Gwendolyn to you." She sounded like a miniature drill sergeant, which would have been funnier if I'd been in less pain.

"Yes, sir," the other voice responded in all seriousness. I heard Chance suppress a snort and Tracy give a moan. I remembered seeing the dog chew her leg up and I wondered if it hurt worse than this did.

The pain was finally fading away, some. I risked a moan and it didn't seem to affect the pain at all, luckily, but the blond girl—Gwendolyn, I guess her name was—looked down at me with concern.

"How did you get hurt?" she asked me. I thought about shrugging, but that's kind of hard to do on the ground and anything that moved my back sent pain rocketing up my spine.

"I don't know," I told her honestly, wincing.

My bothering to respond seemed to encourage her questions. "Who are you?"

"Percy."

"Percy what?"

"I don't know."

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't know your own last name?"

"I just don't remember," I protested. Sure, it might not seem like the best idea to tell random people you meet everything you know, but when a girl pulls a knife on you, ready to use it and you're pretty much helpless, you'll give them answers too, I guarantee it.

Gwendolyn didn't believe me. "Where were you before this?"

"I don't know. I woke up here just before Chance and Tracy came, with the dog and whatever the heck that other thing was." Then suddenly I knew. "It was a Fury, wasn't it?"

Gwendolyn looked at me like she didn't know whether to be surprised or whack me over the head with her knife's hilt or something. "Kind of. It's a Dirae. Furies are Greek. But using either name can be dangerous." She shifted her grip on one of her knives, and I was sure, once again, that she was going to slit me open. "How do you know what it was anyway?"

I grinned—well, more like grimaced. "You're going to hate this, but again, I don't know." Sure enough, she scowled.

"Well, either way, we need to get you three out of here. Do you think you can sit up?"

I was about to tell her there was no way in the world, but she had already leaned over and yanked me into a sitting position. Surprisingly, it wasn't so bad. I felt the pain still, but it wasn't as intense as it had been now that my back wasn't touching the ground anymore. I fingered where I thought the pain had originated and straightened with a yelp when my fingers brushed the spot exactly opposite my belly button. It was like I'd accidentally banged a fresh bruise, except the pain was multiplied by about a thousand, so it seemed more like an open wound. I snatched my hand away, cringing, and it faded again.

Gwendolyn was giving me a weird look. "What's with you?"

I shrugged and started to stand up. It seemed like I would be fine unless I hit my back again. "I don't know."

"You don't know much, then," she said. Now that I was standing up, I saw that she was at least eight inches shorter than me, something that made me grin—her attitude didn't fit her size, from what I could see.

"What are you grinning about?" Gwendolyn snapped.

"You're short."

"Shut up." She stomped over to where Chance was nervously watched a boy with brown hair wrap up Tracy's leg.

"Gwendolyn, she'll need some nectar and ambrosia," the brown-haired boy said. Gwendolyn reached into a pack sitting next to the boy's leg. She pulled out a canteen and a plastic baggie of some kind of food squares and handed both to the boy.

"Who are you people?" Chance asked warily, looking from Gwendolyn to the boy, occasionally stealing a glance at me.

"I'm Dakota Banks, son of Mars," the brown-haired boy said.

"Like Ares?" I blurted. I blinked. I had no idea where that had come from.

Dakota nodded. "Like Ares," he agreed, "but that's just the Greek name. We call him Mars."

"I'm Gwendolyn Marks, daughter of Minerva. Her Greek name is Athena," she added, glancing at me.

"Whoa, hold up," Chance interrupted, "I've heard those names in English and History. Aren't they, like, gods?"

Dakota had finished bandaging Tracy's leg and opened the canteen. He propped up her head and gave her a drink—it looked like apple juice, but I had a funny feeling that it wasn't. Gwendolyn looked at Chance with a cocked eyebrow.

"Yes. One of our parents is a god or goddess."

Chance snorted. "Sure. Whatever."

"You are too."

Chance just rolled his eyes, ever the skeptic. My temples were aching, like my mind was reaching for information that should have been there but wasn't, and I didn't know what to think. Me, the son of an immortal deity? Why did that not sound completely impossible?

"Why else would the monsters attack you?" Dakota asked simply.

Chance stared. "You actually _saw_ them? Not just a bear and a hawk or something, but a dog and that hag?"

"We came here, saw them, and killed them," he said simply.

"_Veni, vidi, vici_," Gwendolyn smirked, but we just ignored the comment.

"So you're saying that I'm the son of some god." Chance just stared.

Gwendolyn nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yes. You're a half-blood. Half mortal, half god. Which is why we have to take you back."

I was instantly on my guard. Chance was too. "Back? Back where?" he asked.

"To camp." Gwendolyn pointed to her shirt. It was a simple purple T-shirt, with _Half-Blood Legions_ written in bold lettering on it. Then she showed us the inside of her right forearm. There was a tattoo of a gray owl, and next to it, closer to her elbow, was what looked like a barcode—seven thin lines tattooed in a row.

"I've been there for seven years," she explained, "and the owl is the symbol of my mother."

Dakota showed us his forearm as well, but it was slightly different. Instead of an owl, there was a boar, the symbol of Ares—Mars, I mean—and there were only five lines. He was also wearing a purple shirt like Gwendolyn.

"Camp is really the only safe place for kids like—"

Gwendolyn stopped as her eyes widened. I saw what she did and stepped back, reaching into my pocket again on instinct, even though there was nothing there. Behind Chance, the dog was stirring from where it had been dissolved, probably by Dakota. Its body was knitting together from the yellow dust it had faded to. And even I, with my limited knowledge, knew that this shouldn't be happening.

Dakota was already on his feet. "_Di immortales_!" he exclaimed. "How?"

"It's reforming already?" Gwendolyn shouted. Her gaze shot over to where the Dirae had fallen and I knew that she didn't want to fight it again. Luckily, the hag hadn't started piecing back together yet, but I swear I saw the dust swirl.

"Dakota, make sure the hellhound doesn't attack us," Gwendolyn ordered. "We're Doorbelling back. I'll start the connection."

"But Lupa said not to risk—" he protested

Gwendolyn cut him off. "That was _before_ there were such things as instantly reforming monsters!"

That seemed to convince Dakota. He walked closer to where the hellhound was stirring, unsheathed his sword, which was clipped to his belt, and stood in a ready stance. Gwendolyn pulled something from her pocket. It was a gold coin, with a face of a roman-looking guy printed on one side. I couldn't see what was on the other.

"What's that?" I asked.

"An aureus," she said, not bothering to look at me. "Roman currency. There are actually different coins, too, but the gods only use pure gold and imperial gold, so the others are kind of useless."

She muttered something under her breath and tossed the aureus into the air. Midway through its arc it shimmered and disappeared. The outlines of something large and rectangular began to appear, but the lines were blurred and fuzzy. Gwendolyn tapped her foot impatiently.

"Come on…" she muttered. She glanced at Chance. "What's your name?"

"Chance."

"Chance what?"

He eyed her warily and I wanted to tell him just to say it. She and Dakota had saved him from the hellhound, hadn't they?

"Chance Palmer," he said at length.

Gwendolyn nodded and looked down to Tracy. "Yours?"

"Tracy Takoya," Tracy said, wincing as she tried shifting her leg.

Gwendolyn glanced at Chance. "You'll probably want to pick Tracy up. We're going to need to get out of here pretty fast once the,"—she paused—"door opens." She sounded like she wanted to call it a lot more than _just_ a door.

Because that's what the shimmery outline was. I was beginning to see hints of wooden planks and a golden doorknob. Gwendolyn was glaring at it like she wanted the door to hurry the heck up with materializing—she was in no way surprised like Tracy and Chance and I were. She'd probably summoned the door thing lots of times before, though, so I guess I shouldn't really compare.

Chance leaned down and picked Tracy up, as per Gwendolyn's orders. Tracy protested a bit, but you could tell she knew that she wouldn't have been able to stand on her own.

I heard a deep, menacing growl and knew that the hellhound was done reforming. I looked over and saw Dakota leap at the monster with some kind of war cry and start hacking at it. I somehow knew that Mars was the god of war and couldn't help thinking the family resemblance was obvious. I glanced over at the Dirae, which was almost done. Its right hand/wing ensemble was grabbing at its flaming whip while its left side was still shapeless dust.

Gwendolyn spun back towards the door and yanked on the newly materialized knob. The door opened about three inches before it stopped suddenly, held in place by a golden chain. Gwendolyn gave a cry of frustration.

"I'll sacrifice you a chicken, I swear it on the Styx, just as long as we can get out of her now!"

I wondered who on earth she was talking to, but whoever it was apparently heard, because the chain disappeared and the door swung open the rest of the way. It caught Gwendolyn by surprise, despite the fact she'd been asking for it, and she stumbled back a step or two before regaining her balance. I was staring openmouthed at the doorway. Through the frame was a swirling, undefined mist where I could see shifting shapes that never held substance for more than a moment. It looked supernatural and ominous. Gwendolyn said something I didn't catch and then the mist started swirling into a scene in the middle of a redwood forest, with a skinny asphalt trail leading somewhere I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

"Go," Gwendolyn told Chance. "You need to get Tracy away from these monsters. The Dirae's almost reformed. Through the door is camp, you'll be safer there."

I noticed she'd said _safer,_ not just _safe_.

Chance nodded and stepped through. It seemed like he only went a foot, and nothing seemed to be separating us, but as he went through his image glitched, and now he was panting looking queasy. Tracy wasn't looking well either. What in the world?

"You to, Percy," Gwendolyn told me.

For some reason, I didn't think going was a good idea. "But—"

"Go! The Dirae's done!" She didn't wait for my consent and shoved me backwards as I saw the Dirae come flying. As I passed through the door, my vision went black for a fraction of a second and my stomach seemed like it was turning inside out. For a moment, the air rushed out of my lungs and I couldn't fill them back up. Then I landed on the other side, sucked in a huge breath and stared panting like Chance had been before. I was sure I was going to upchuck.

Through the door, I couldn't hear, weirdly enough, but I could see. Gwendolyn's back was to me and she had pulled her knives out again. The Dirae dived at her but shifted course pretty quick once it saw that the knives weren't just for show. Gwendolyn looked to one side and I was pretty sure she was calling to Dakota, because barely two seconds later, he cut from his fight against the hellhound and ran towards Gwendolyn. The Dirae lunged at them again and its whip wrapped around the blade of one of Gwendolyn's knives and yanked her away from the door. She could've let go of her knives to escape, but she didn't seem to want to let go of her weapon. The Dirae was making her loose her balance and Gwendolyn seemed about to fall to the ground as it manipulated the whip, the knife, and her grip.

Dakota cut the whip cleanly in two with his sword and grabbed Gwendolyn's arm. He ran towards the doorway to where Chance and Tracy and I were and shoved Gwendolyn through. He made it through himself while shutting the door with the Dirae only inches away. Instantly, the door disappeared and Dakota and Gwendolyn landed on their backs.

Gwendolyn took two long breaths, then sat up. She looked towards Dakota. "We owe Portunus a chicken."

He smirked as he sat up. "Of course. You're telling Lupa."

"Where are we?" Chance asked them.

"Almost at camp," Gwendolyn answered, standing up and motioning for the rest of us to do the same. "It's only around the corner."

We got up, but Chance needed help with Tracy. He was pretty tired in the first place and Tracy couldn't stand.

"I'll carry her," Dakota offered. "You've been running for a long time. You've got to be exhausted."

Chance nodded. "Thanks."

Our ragtag little group started along the asphalt trail with Dakota carrying Tracy bridal style. The camp really was just around the corner like Gwendolyn said. There was a huge stone arch with writing across the top. It didn't look English, it was something older. I felt a pang and thought again that I didn't want to go there.

Beneath the arch was a gray wolf. It was a she-wolf, but I don't know how I could tell from that distance. She was watching us as she came closer, her tail swishing in agitation. I somehow knew this wasn't normal and that this was definitely _not_ a good thing.

The she-wolf was waiting for us.

**Please review and give me some feedback for future chapters. I'd like to hear what you thought of this first chapter. **

**Random comment: I think Percy's going to end up dying of appendicitis because no one could get a scalpel into him to perform surgery, thanks to the Curse of Achilles.**

**If you review, please answer this question: If someone skewered Percy through his weak point, would the sword come out through his stomach or would the invulnerability stop it? I'm morbidly curious.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-Rydd Rider **


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